1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an endoscope apparatus, and more particularly, to an endoscope apparatus having an endoscope with a balloon attached to a tip end of an insertion section, and an insertion assisting tool for guiding the insertion section of the endoscope into a body cavity.
2. Description of the Related Art
When the insertion section of an endoscope is inserted into a deep alimentary canal such as a small intestine, by only pushing the insertion section into the deep alimentary canal, the force is difficult to transmit to a tip end of the insertion section due to complicated bending of an intestinal canal, and insertion into a deep part is difficult. Thus, there is proposed an endoscope apparatus which prevents excessive bending and deflection of the insertion section by inserting the insertion section into a body cavity with an insertion assisting tool called an over tube or a sliding tube attached to the insertion section of the endoscope, and guiding the insertion section with this insertion assisting tool (for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid Open No. 10-248794).
In conventional endoscope apparatuses, there is known a double balloon type endoscope apparatus provided with a balloon at a tip end part of an endoscope insertion section and provided with a balloon at a tip end part of an insertion assisting tool (for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid Open No. 2001-340462 and Japanese Patent Application Laid Open No. 2002-301019).
Incidentally, as the procedure of the endoscope apparatus using an insertion assisting tool, a desired procedure is desired to be performed by inserting a treatment tool such as a balloon dilator for widening a narrow region of an intestinal canal and a contrast tube for injecting a contrast medium for observing the narrow region of the intestinal canal. However, these treatment tools are objects with comparatively large diameters, and therefore, they cannot be inserted by using a forceps channel inserted and disposed in the endoscope insertion section. Therefore, it has been desired to extract only the endoscope insertion section with the insertion assisting tool left in the body cavity and insert these treatment tools with the insertion assisting tool as a guide.